Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Quick BIQ Review: The Locals (2003)

Australia gave the world Houseboat Horror, so New Zealand finally retaliated with The Locals. That comparison may be a bit harsh, but I’m struggling to find anything nice to say about this poorly scripted, over-acted, ineffective little Kiwi "horror" flick.

Apart from beging poorly scripted, over-acted, and generally ineffective, the thing that is most notably wrong with the film is the lighting. The film takes place mostly at night in the New Zealand country side. So in theory it should be dark, right? Wrong. Every scene is lit with 50 gazillion mega watt spot lights just out of frame, making the whole thing look like Friday Night Football. It’s distracting and distinctly unscary.

I guess at the heart of this film is a good story idea, but the execution is real amateur hour stuff.